CRISPR Screening Identifies Potential HIV Treatment Targets

December 20, 2016

(Eurekalert) – Investigators from the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT and Harvard and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have used the revolutionary new gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 to identify three promising new targets for treatment of HIV infection. In their report receiving advance online publication in Nature Genetics, the research team describes how screening with CRISPR for human genes essential for HIV infection but not for cellular survival identified five genes — three of which had not been identified in earlier studies using RNA interference. Their method can also be used to identify therapeutic targets for other viral pathogens.

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